e removal of resistances
which operate against the expansion of the ego. It cannot be denied that
hostile tendencies, which are linked with pusillanimous views, are always
on hand and create conflicts. If they were not, the moral task would be an
easy one. Now as man cannot serve two masters, so in the personal
psychical household, the points of view which have been dethroned, as far
as they will not unite with the newly acquired ones, must be killed, and
ousted from their power. Most of all must this process be made effective
if the development is taken up intensively in the shape of introversion.
It must appear also in the symbolism.

Already in the lecanomantic experiments we are struck by the dying of the
figure (old man) that represents the old form of conscience that has been
overcome. It is that part of Lea's psyche that resists the new, after the
manner of old people (father type). In order that the new may be
suppressed, it must be immolated; at every step in his evolution man must
give up something; not without sacrifice, not without renunciation, is the
better attained. The sacrifice must come, of course, before the new
reformed life begins. The hermetic representations do not indeed always
follow chronological order, yet the sacrifice is usually placed at the
beginning, as introversion. In the parable the wanderer kills the lion,
well at the beginning. He sacrifices something in so doing. He kills
himself, i.e., a part of himself, in order to be able to rise renewed
(regenerated). This process is the first mystical death, also called by
the alchemists, putrefaction or the blacks. This death is often fused with
the symbol of introversion, because both can appear under the symbol of
the entrance into the mother or earth. Only by closer examination can it
sometimes be seen which process is chiefly intended.

"And that shalt thou know my son, whoso does not know how to kill, and to
bring about a rebirth, to make the spirits revive, to purify, to make
bright and clear ... he as yet knows nothing and will accomplish nothing."
(Siebengestirn, p. 21.)

"These are the two serpents sent by Juno (which is the metallic nature)
which the strong Hercules (i.e., the wise man in his cradle) has to
strangle, i.e., to overpower and kill, in order in the beginning of his
work to have them rot, be destroyed and to bear." (Flamel, p. 54.)

Again and again the masters declare that one cannot attain to true
progress except by m